


Canyons Too Narrow

by natlet



Category: Babylon 5
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-06-25
Updated: 2009-06-25
Packaged: 2017-10-03 03:45:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/natlet/pseuds/natlet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jeff's gone. For real, this time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Canyons Too Narrow

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers through War Without End parts 1&amp;2.
> 
> Written for [random-fic](http://random-fic-is-random.dreamwidth.org) on Dreamwidth.  
> Prompt: _a character is in exile/stranded/avoiding everyone_

He forgets, once. He's in the gardens and Delenn comes in, they're making small talk, and he says something like Jeff used to or Jeff loved it here, doesn't matter what; what matters is the way Delenn looks at him deep and black and knowing, the tiny smile she gives him, the way it feels exactly like she'd wound up all the strength in her little frame and socked him in the gut.

She must have said something, and he must have answered her, but he doesn't remember their conversation; he walks away with only the memory of her eyes, the conviction stronger than ever that he's not where he's supposed to be, and it's someone else's fault.

Michael cruises through the station without seeing it; up through the Zocalo, to Sheridan's office to give his daily report, exchanging nods with Ivanova and Zack. He sits behind his desk and sorts data crystals, fiddles with his link until it's time to close up. He cooks himself dinner - sort of, if heating up canned sauce, dumping it over pasta that's a little too al dente counts as cooking. He sits at his tiny table and chokes it down, looking everywhere but at the empty chair across from him, and when he sleeps, it's still only on one side of the bed.

*

In the depths, the clutches of his selfishness, he lets himself think he doesn't care about prophecy, he doesn't care about continuity or history or the future of the universe; he'd give it all up, gladly, he'd watch the Shadows overrun the station and meet his end with a smile on his face, if only he could have seen Jeff once more.

Everyone gets blamed, when Michael first finds out what happened. It's Ivanova's fault, for letting him launch; it's Sheridan's fault for sending him back to the damned station like he'd done something wrong; it's Zack's fault, for not letting him know as soon as Sinclair was on the station; it's Delenn's fault, for dragging them into the Minbari's damned mess in the first place. Michael hates all of them, bitterly, sharply; he hates them for keeping the secret, he hates them for being there when he wasn't, he hates them for letting it all play out. They're supposed to be his friends, he's supposed to be able to rely on them, trust them, and sometimes it's all he can do to say hello without wanting to bite someone's head off.

He feels bad about it; he knows, intellectually, that there was no time to reconsider, no time to stop, no time to think about one lonely security chief. Not with all of history on the line, not with a prophecy to fulfill. He's heard the explanations and the reasoning, he's been told it was their only hope, he's been told it was all decided and laid out a thousand years ago and all anyone did was follow the script.

He can't help but wish Delenn had cast someone else.

*

"We didn't know, Michael," Susan says, awkwardly. "If I'd known, I'd never have let - I'd have made him at least talk to you, you deserved to at least get to - "

"It doesn't matter," he says to the floor. She's the only one he can bring himself to speak to, but that doesn't mean he can look at her. "It wasn't your call to make."

"This is my station," she says. "They're all my calls to make."

Michael shakes his head. "You got outranked," he says. "No point in beating yourself up over someone else's bad decisions."

She doesn't say anything. For a long moment, they sit in silence, side by side. Her arm presses up against his, warm through the scratchy fabric of their uniforms, and he lets himself lean into her. "I let him go," she says, all in a rush; "There was a minute, just before we left him, and I knew, and I just let it - "

He reaches out and takes her hand, and she shuts up, wraps her fingers around his and just hangs on tight.

*

"He told me," Delenn says, "that he finally knew where he belonged. Where he was supposed to be."

Michael doesn't say anything. He wants to tell her Jeff was wrong, that she put this crazy idea in his head, that everything Jeff thought he knew was some elaborate self-important fantasy she and her people manufactured. He wants to tell her he doesn't give a fuck about the things she holds sacred, he wants to tell her he thinks her prophecy is a load of bullshit, no more than a story she was told. So he says nothing, and after a while Delenn gives up and leaves him alone, and he doesn't know how to tell her Jeff seemed to know where he belonged well enough before she'd come along.

*

Michael has a dream, once. He doesn't know if it's real or some kind of weird metaphor, if it's maybe his subconscious filling in the gaps, trying to make sense of something that doesn't have any kind of sense to it at all, but the image of a Minbari with Jeff's eyes is so strong, so real, that days go by before he stops seeing it on the backs of his eyelids.

He thinks it's pretty stupid to believe something based on some dream you had, but he can never quite shake the feeling he wakes up with, that Jeff's still out there, that he's all right.

*

_Those canyons are too narrow to travel.  
How will you make your way there, when_

it's a mere bird-path - a thousand miles  
and gibbons howling all day and night?

\- [Farewell to Yang, Who's Leaving for Kuo-Chuo](http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19168) by Wang Wei


End file.
